Steps to maintain strong partnerships with your contractor management network

Whether you’re overseeing a small team in a low-risk environment or managing a large pool of workers and contractors on a construction site, effective supplier communication plays a key role in a project’s outcome.

Many worksites require contractors to be qualified, observe unique safety protocols, complete site-specific training and demonstrate that they follow local regulations and requirements before stepping on site. Efficient communication with contractors, whether it be for important project updates or revised safety rules – is crucial to ensuring that your contractors and workers are adhering to your organization’s policies.

But effective communication isn’t just useful for making sure that you’re keeping your business safe. With the right tools, effective communication can also improve operational efficiency and address common challenges in your compliance management strategy.

Here are three key challenges that safety, procurement and supply chain leaders encounter when working with contractors, and how effective communication can minimize these issues:

1- Risk Mitigation and Doing Your Due Diligence

Contracted work comes with risk and potential hazards, and every worksite and every project is different.

Meaningful communication to hired contractors is essential to ensuring that they’re equipped with the knowledge and site-specific information needed to complete their job. Not only does it mitigate risk against any potential incidents, it also keeps your contractors up to date with any changes or relevant news that might affect their tasks.

A dedicated contractor management platform like Alcumus SafeContractor, go the extra mile and enable you to verify that hired contractors understand your compliance requirements and have the correct documented procedures in place to manage this effectively. That way, you can have confidence that you’re working to mutually accepted standards.

It’s important to keep in mind that while contractor management platforms can help reduce risk and assist your due diligence process, they’re only as strong as the information being transmitted through them. So be sure that your data entry is credible and clear.

2- Managing the Efficiency and Quality of Contracted Work

Without effective contractor communication, projects can stall or take longer than anticipated to complete. Frequent, purposeful communication with strengthens the quality of the work they do by reducing lost time and the need for inefficient back and forth. That means less hours billed and more efficient task performance.

A contractor management platform that can enable contractors to view important documents, training material, and event calendars all in one place saves time by eliminating the need to track down the location of each of these resources. Using a cloud-based platform, any updates made by an organization to training or safety documentation are automatically sent to contractors so they are always informed, in real time.

3- Building Stronger Relationships with Engaged Contractors

An engaged contractor is a productive contractor. Regular communication with your contractor network fosters a knowledgeable, resourceful work culture where contractors feel empowered and motivated to perform their tasks to a high quality.

By opening dialogues and encouraging information exchange with your contractors, you’re making sure they’re informed on a project’s objectives and scope. Increased rapport and engagement between a contractor and hiring client also supports a work environment where contractors feel confident in providing feedback, expertise, and suggestions on ways a project could be run more efficiently. They may also be more inclined to share their knowledge with in-house employees, further increasing the overall know-how of any worker involved in the project.

The important takeaway here is that meaningful, targeted information exchange with contractors goes a long way to improving organizational efficiency and mitigating risk.